Three Secrets
by takingoffmyshoes
Summary: Illya has a secret. A shameful, shameful secret. (Except that it's not so shameful, really, and Gaby and Solo have their own secrets to share, as well.) The third installment of the bakery AU.
1. in which Solo continues to be enigmatic

Let the record reflect from the outset that Illya was not _worried_. He was not _worried_ about Solo, he just wanted to _check_ on him. Because of _reasons_.

Reasons like the ice storm that had knocked out power across half the city and burst pipes in the other half. Reasons like the wind and sleet that made the roads unsafe and the alleys between buildings impassable. Reasons like the fact that he wasn't answering his telephone. Reasons like the fact that La Mie was still _closed_ at _nine in the morning_ on a _Wednesday_.

 _Reasons_.

So really, Illya was perfectly justified in going and breaking into Solo's flat.

He was not, however, prepared for what awaited him there.

He lets out a startled hiss before he gets control of himself, because it is _freezing_. The hall outside had been chilly, but the rooms within are nearly arctic (and Illya would know). He can't see his breath, but it's probably just a matter of time; it's well below freezing outside, and only getting colder.

He closes the door behind him, glad for the thick gloves he wore on the way over. The flat is silent, absent even the sounds of air or water moving through vents and pipes. That would explain why his telephone call had gone unanswered, then, if the power were out, and perhaps a pipe had frozen or burst elsewhere in the building.

Solo's flat is not what Illya would have expected. For starters, it's not above the bakery where any sensible person would choose to live. Illya's next guess would have placed him in a house in a different, nicer part of the city altogether, but that's not it either. Rather, Solo lives a few blocks away from the bakery in the wrong direction, in an old and frankly unattractive apartment building.

Solo had given him the address at some point, more of an off-hand remark than a meaningful exchange of information, and Illya's knowledge of the city hadn't been complete enough to place it. He'd taken a cab over from the bakery, though, and been thoroughly surprised by the stop.

The flat itself is nice enough, he supposes — or it would be it the heat were working — and he indulges in a bit of harmless snooping on his search for Solo. The space turns out to be surprisingly impersonal. For someone as loud and colorful as Solo, it's quite colorless, and the decorations are tasteful but rather bland.

The mystery of the missing color is solved when he nudges open a door that turns out to be a bedroom. It's dark inside, but once his eyes adjust he sees that rugs of every color and pattern known to man are layered over one another on the floor, and the bed is almost totally obscured by blankets, throws, and what may even be a couple of towels, all of different hues and designs.

Apparently Solo had responded to the growing cold by bringing every scrap of moveable fabric into the bedroom and adding it to his magpie's nest. Not entirely unreasonable, but a fully sane person would have just _left_.

And let it never be said that Napoleon Solo is _sane_.

"Cowboy?" Illya calls softly, and is rewarded with a slow roll of movement from under the mountain of blankets on the bed.

"I hope that's not you, Illya," comes the muffled response, "because I'd hate to have to kill you for breaking into my apartment and waking me up."

And that, _that_ does it, because Solo doesn't use his given name, and more importantly, Solo doesn't _sleep_. He's up before five most mornings, ready to open the bakery at seven on weekdays and eight on weekends, and he stays well past closing to clean and prepare for the next day. Illya had once recommended that he hire some help, and Solo had been so scandalized that Illya might as well have offered to stab him.

If the bakery were closed because the storm had rendered it unusable in some way, that would be one thing, but for it to be closed because Solo was still asleep at nine o'clock? Unheard of.

"What's wrong?" he sighs, resigning himself to the worst possible drama as he picks his way across the haphazard floor. "Are you sick?"

Solo's head appears from under a thick ochre blanket in some vaguely geometric print. "Why would I be _sick_?" he demands, gathering righteous indignation about himself like a cloak. It does little to counteract his incredible bedhead or the fact that he still has blankets pulled up to his chin.

"You take day off," Illya says. "You _never_ take day off."

"I'm not allowed to take a vacation?"

"Да, you're allowed to, but you _don't_."

"Well, I am today. Goodbye." He retreats back under the blankets, and it's not like Illya can blame him — it's _cold_ , after all — but he _can_ pursue further information. He does this by taking a handful of blankets and yanking them down around Solo's waist, revealing his curly mess of hair and a forest green sweater.

Solo lets out an ungodly yelp at the sudden intrusion of cold air and scrambles to burrow back down under the warmth. Illya is extremely unnerved at the sound, and wonders for a frantic moment if Solo actually _is_ sick, until he realizes that it hadn't come from Solo at all, but rather from a cat who had been curled up in the curve of his body.

The cat, a long-haired tabby with white markings, wriggles out from the top of the blankets and immediately puffs up to twice what Illya assumes is its normal size. It stalks across the bed towards him, somewhat hampered by the uneven surface, and Illya finds himself unnerved once again.

No, not unnerved again; unnerved _still_ , because everything about Napoleon Solo is apparently designed to be unnerving.

"Solo," he says carefully, as the cat sniffs the air around him, "why do you have a cat in your bed?"

"Who, Lady Margaret?" is the muffled response, and Illya has to consciously unclench his fists.

"Unless there are more," he says through gritted teeth.

"No, just the one."

"Then by process of elimination, it would _have_ to be Lady whatever, wouldn't it?"

"No need to be rude," Solo huffs, snippy even through his many layers of blankets. "And in case you haven't noticed, it's very cold. We have a mutually beneficial arrangement."

"About that," Illya starts, and then stops. "Come on, Cowboy, I'm not going to talk to blankets all morning."

There's some shifting and some shimmying, which sends the cat jumping down off the bed, and then Solo's head re-emerges, hair in even greater disarray than before. "Carry on," he says easily, and Illya rolls his eyes.

"How long has heat been out?" he asks.

"Some time yesterday, I'd imagine. Stone cold when I got back."

"And were you planning on doing anything about it, or…?"

Solo pins him with a flat look. "Peril, I've just gotten warm for the first time in nearly twelve hours, so if you'll excuse me, I don't plan on moving again until it's absolutely necessary. Now be a good man and put my cat back in, would you?" He rolls over, putting his back to Illya and making to pull the blankets back over his head again, and Illya leans over and grabs his arm to stop him. He's expecting Solo to be annoyed, but he's not prepared for him to _jerk,_ to flinch with his entire body and land on his back once more, face ashen and drawn. Illya lets go as though burned, shocked into stillness and silence. "Don't," Solo grits out, eyes shut tight and sweat starting to bead along his hairline. It looks like he's about to pass out; if he weren't lying down, he already might have. "Don't do that."

Meanwhile, Illya's mind is racing with thoughts of what-ifs and maybes, running through lists of everything that can go wrong in a kitchen with large knives and heavy objects and hot surfaces.

"What is it?" he asks fervently, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pressing a hand to Solo's forehead. He's not feverish, so that's good, but his skin is clammy, which is not. "Solo, what's wrong?"

Solo doesn't answer, focused as he is on breathing deeply through his nose, so Illya folds the blankets carefully back from his left arm, the one he'd touched, but whatever's wrong with it is concealed by the thick cable knit of his sweater. There is, however, the edge of a bandage peeking out from the cuff of the sleeve.

A sleeve that will certainly not come off without a great deal of grief.

"I need scissors," he says, and pushes himself up, but Solo shakes his head vigorously.

"No," he says tightly, "I'm fine. It's fine. Just...just give me a minute."

"That is not _fine_ ," Illya snaps. "I need to get sleeve off to look, and I need scissors to—"

"Peril, stop. It's okay, just don't _grab_ it like that again, that's all." His voice is steadier now, and so what Illya really hears is "please don't cut my sweater," rather than "please just leave me here to die." Normally he wouldn't give a damn about the man's wardrobe, but it really is cruelly cold in here.

"What happened? Illya asks.

"Burned myself," Solo admits. "Scalded, really. It's not too bad, just hurts like the devil to touch it."

"When?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

So he'd burned himself badly enough that it was still excruciating the next day and then come home to find that the heating had failed. And the thing of it is that Illya's actually _angry_ with him. He knows that it's nonsensical, that Solo hadn't done any of this on purpose and there's really nothing he could have done to prevent it, but that doesn't stop him from wanting to wanting to take Solo by the shoulders and shake him for spending the night injured and freezing and alone, when _Illya—_

'Illya _what_ ,' he doesn't know – would have come and helped him? Would have come and gotten him? Would have taken him back to his apartment and let Mrs. Vanlian fuss over him all evening? _Cares_ about him? – so he sets that line of thought aside.

Illya weighs his options, and arrives at the inevitable.

"You're coming home with me," he decides aloud. "I'll pack you a bag."

Solo puts up some token protests, but once Illya reluctantly agrees to bring his cat, as well, he subsides, and directs the packing process from his bed, sitting up and heavily wrapped against the chill. Illya's breath starts to fog the air as he moves about. Once the bag is packed and the cat is ensconced in a box padded with towels, Illya helps Solo ease into his coat and wrap his scarf. If he notices an apparent stiffness in Solo's left arm, or a clumsiness in his fingers, he keeps it to himself.

He'll leave that for Mrs. Vanlian.

* * *

He gets Solo and his things (and his _cat_ , which is still just a bit too much to swallow) up to his apartment without incident, and settles Solo in the kitchen with a cup of hot, strong coffee in his hands – or, hand – and an afghan over his shoulders before crossing the hall to knock on the Vanlians' door.

"I'm sorry to bother you," he says when Mrs. Vanlian opens it, "but I need your help with something."

Illya has more than his fair share of experience with first aid, but Mrs. Vanlian sees Solo as yet another wayward son, Illya's still trying to tamp down that strange, seething anger, and hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has been injured doing something stupid.

He explains the situation to her, and sees the cold, hard light of an imminent scolding gathering in her eyes.

It vanishes as soon as she sees Solo, of course, and she greets him with all her customary warmth. He returns her affections with a rather awkward one-armed hug, but his expression over her shoulder is perplexed. Illya smirks, and Solo's eyes widen as he realizes what's about to happen. Sure enough, Mrs. Vanlian pulls away and presses him back into his seat.

"Illya tells me you've hurt yourself rather badly," she says in Russian. Solo tries to dismiss her concerns, but she continues. "He also says that you spent the night in an old, unheated building instead of asking your friends for help." Illya _hadn't_ said that last bit in quite so many words, but the image her statement evokes – of Solo huddled in the corner of some decrepit warehouse, stubbornly ignoring the voice of reason literally knocking at the doors – is not actually all that inaccurate.

"The phone line was dead," Solo says, and yes, Illya _had_ tried to call him to no avail. The anger wavers, then steps back into irritation, since the bakery has a phone, as well, which may well have been fully functional.

Mrs. Vanlian concedes the point with a touch of wariness, like she's not quite sure she believes him, but poses no further accusation. "Come on then," she says, "let's take a look."

Getting Solo out of the sweater is rather a lot of work, since he flinches and pales anytime someone touches his left arm, but between the three of them they manage to get it off without too much incident. Solo's left shivering in a white t-shirt, and Mrs. Vanlian has Illya get him another blanket before she turns to the bandage wrapped from his wrist almost to his shoulder. She carefully unwinds the cloth to reveal the telltale blisters and angry red splotches of a scald wound — a bad one, at that.

"Oh, Napoleon," she breathes, "what happened?"

Solo gives a vague account of a new recipe and a foolish mistake and a vat of something boiling spilling all down his arm, but he doesn't give specific details and his Russian is clumsier than usual. Mrs. Vanlian doesn't press him, though, just squeezes his good arm and kisses him on the top of the head, promising to get him all fixed up.

She returns from a raid on Illya's bathroom with a roll of gauze, a bottle of iodine, and a tub of Vaseline. Solo bears it impassively until the iodine hits a spot where a blister had torn away, revealing raw, spongy flesh, and Illya has to push his head down between his knees and remind him to breathe while Mrs. Vanlian crouches in front of him, wiping his face and neck with a cold towel and murmuring soothing Russian nonsense. The iodine likely burns worse than whatever had scalded him in the first place, but infection would be far worse than either, so they take a short break and then continue.

There's one more raw spot, larger than the first, and waters down the iodine before applying it but Solo still goes rigid and pale and needs Illya to hold him still so that Mrs. Vanlian can finish. She does, then daubs the whole thing liberally with Vaseline and wraps it all carefully in two layers of gauze. Together, she and Illya get him to the couch — a two person job, because Solo's more than a little unsteady on his feet after everything, and Illya's afraid of jostling his arm.

"Would you like to stay here, or come back with me?" she asks once he's settled, stroking damp hair back from his forehead. "The children are all at school, so I can promise a few hours of quiet."

"Oh, no, I'd much rather bother Peril," Solo murmurs, eyes closed, and that's how Illya knows he's all right.

"That's fine," Mrs. Vanlian smiles, "but you'll let me know if you need anything." It's not a question.

Solo hums his assent, then Mrs. Vanlian's taking Illya's arm and leading him out of the main room and into the bathroom.

"He should be fine," she says quietly, explaining the reason for their odd sequestration, "but I don't think he cleaned it yesterday so you'll have to watch for infection. You know what to look for?"

Illya nods.

"And you'll come and get me if you need help?"

"այո," Illya agrees.

"Good boy," she smiles, and gestures for him to head back out into the hall.

"I'll come check on you this afternoon," she promises in Russian, and if Solo were a normal person, he'd simply accept it. As it is, he raises an eyebrow and starts to protest as politely and eloquently as possible. "D'ap," she interrupts, pointing at him in manner that has subdued many an ebullient child. "Just you try to stop me, Napoleon Solo. Try, and see what happens."

Napoleon deflates; Mrs. Vanlian softens. "Get some rest," she says gently. "Healing takes time."

"Yes, Mrs. Vanlian," Napoleon mutters, wisely giving in.

"Be good," she tells them both, and slips out. There's a soft snick as the door closes behind her.

"Nice place," Solo says eventually, breaking the newfound silence. "Heating and everything."

"Running water, too," Illya agrees blandly. "And three working hands between us."

Solo snorts. "Yes, all right, I should have asked for help. Happy?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, there's not much I can do for that, I'm afraid." Solo rearranges the blankets around himself and slides a little further down the arm of the sofa. "Would you mind letting Lady Margaret out? She's probably asleep, but no living thing should be trapped."

Illya goes over to the bed, where Solo's bag is sitting next to a suspiciously quiet box, and carefully lifts the lid. The cat is indeed sleeping within, curled into a circle with its feather-duster tail tucked over its nose and front paws. Its fur is long and soft-looking – on impulse, he runs a hand down its flank, and should have expected the way it startles, lifting its head to reveal a silky white throat and chest. A small chirrupy trill has the distinct cadence of a question, so Illya holds his hand out for a sniff. He's never been one for cats, but he's never precisely disliked them, either. He just never spent much time around them, and doesn't know how to act. The fact that Solo, of all people, should have one…. It's not _that_ odd, but still. It's just one more surprise, just one more facet he hadn't been anticipating. Every time he thinks he's starting to understand the man, something catches him off guard. It's like he's doing it on purpose.

Infuriating American.

Apparently satisfied with his scent, the cat butts its head up under his hand, and Illya obediently scritches between its ears.

"Why Peril, are you bonding with my cat?" There's a smile clear in Solo's voice, and Illya almost startles. He's so rarely quiet, after all.

"Not on purpose," Illya says, still not looking away from the small animal so happily receiving his attentions, and Solo chuckles.

"She's a sweetheart, isn't she?" He pats his lap and clicks his tongue, and the cat gives Illya's hand one last nudge before jumping down off the bed and trotting across the room to hop up onto Solo's lap. "I found her not long after I'd moved to the city. She was doing all right on her own, but I think most of us do better with a home. She certainly seems to agree." Illya can hear the purring from across the room as the cat stands on Solo's chest, tail waving lazily in the air, accepting its due affection.

"You do not seem the type to take in strays," Illya says, and then immediately realizes how untrue that is. Solo had taken him in just as surely as the Vanlians had; the fact that he (and the Vanlians) have now taken Solo in doesn't do anything to change that. But the words are already out, and Solo doesn't appear to take any offense.

"No," he says, "I suppose not. But some are just too hard to resist, don't you think?"

"Perhaps," Illya allows, but all he can think is _I know_ _._

* * *

 _Thanks for reading! This story will have three chapters, and although I'm aiming to have it finished before the holidays I'm not sure what my posting schedule will look like. As always, please feel free to leave any feedback you'd like to, and hopefully I won't keep you waiting too long before the next bit!_


	2. in which Illya reveals his softer side

Solo falls asleep almost immediately, as Illya suspected he would, between one thing and another, so he goes into his room to stretch out on his bed with a book. He manages this quite peacefully for about an hour, until he hears the soft thump of the cat jumping down off the sofa and realizes abruptly that he'd more or less broken into Solo's apartment and kidnapped him out of little more than sheer annoyance. He feels bad for a few seconds, then he remembers the freezing rooms, the festering scald wound, and the fact that Solo would probably happily have died of hypothermia or some kitchen-related infection before thinking to ask for help, so really, he's an idiot and all Illya did was save him from himself.

That settled, he is still faced with the question of what to do now. If you kidnap someone for their own good, you can't just ignore them afterwards; honor demands that you follow through. With the two most pressing concerns taken care of, what is there left to do?

Solo will want to rest, and complain, and be annoying, and all Illya has to do is sit there and let him, and maybe make some tea and some food when he wakes up, but that's hardly going to take up the whole day. Illya checks his watch: not quite 11:30, and how long is this supposed to go on, anyway? A day? A week? They're friends, yes, but the "I break into your kitchen and help you work and you thank me by getting me involved in things I never asked to be involved in" kind of friends, not the kind that sits around in silence for days on end kind of silence.

He doesn't even have work to escape to, since the ice storm that precipitated (hah) the situation has put a solid hold on the new sewer lines being laid. And the more he thinks about that, the more unfortunate it seems, since he doesn't exactly have savings and if he's going to need to feed two people instead of one, he'd rather have a paycheck while he does, unless Solo wants to pay his way, which he probably will but with what money? They didn't take any with them, so they could drive back across town to Solo's apartment to get it, but what if Solo's arm gets infected and he's too sick to go so Illya has to go by himself and dig around his things looking for his money, and is found and arrested because who in their right mind would believe that really, he just needs his friend's money to pay for his groceries, his friend said he could, and—

Why didn't he just think of this before they left, is the real question. What's wrong with him? Did the sight of Solo looking so pathetic really throw him so badly that he couldn't string two sensical thoughts together? He should be immune to Solo by now, damn it, but apparently he's not.

He probably would have just kept asking himself useless questions and spiraling further into complete inanity had the cat not padded into his room just then, head down and prowling like a tiger, and provided a new and welcome avenue of questioning.

Illya knows more or less how to deal with Solo by now - is personality, at least, if not this exact situation - but the cat is a complete unknown. Illya's never had a cat, and his neighbors two doors down growing up had a stray that lived on their property, but he only ever saw it from a distance. He knows the basics, obviously - it will need food and water and a place to do its business, and what else? Do cats need to be exercised like dogs do? He thinks not, but if anyone were to have a contrary cat, it would absolutely be Solo. He can't imagine the idea of _walking_ a cat, though – he'd seen nothing to suggest such an activity in Solo's flat – so if it needs exercise, it will have to be through play. Hunting! Yes, that's it: cats play by simulating hunting, so it needs something to chase, something to bat around…

He wants to slap himself when he realizes the answer, if only because it took so long.

He has just the thing.

Tucked into one corner of his tiny bedroom is a dresser that skirts the edge of comically large, especially in such a small space. Only two of the four drawers contain his clothing, so it's not as though he's already fallen into capitalist hedonism (he snorts to himself: not that he _could_ , even if he wanted to). One sparsely populated drawer holds some of the more painful personal belongings he'd brought from Russia – a few pictures of his family from his early childhood, the Orthodox bible he'd taken at his mother's insistence, his sambo medals, his judo _dan_ certificates, and a handful of buttons from the shirt his father had been wearing the day the KGB came for him, all that Illya's young hands and childish protests could keep – but the one below it is stuffed to bursting. It would make more sense to equalize the two a little more, but some things don't belong together.

It's this last drawer that he opens now, pausing to listen and make sure that Solo's still asleep. If he asks, Illya will say that he got it from Mrs. Vanlian; Illya likes Solo, but he's not quite prepared to deal with his reaction right now. The apartment is quiet but for the cat's quiet purring, so Illya reaches in and pulls out a ball of yarn, then carefully closes the drawer again, making sure no stray loops or ends peek out.

The yarn is grey wool, tightly spun, and (hopefully) unlikely to explode into millions of pieces of wool fluff that he'll have to pick up later.

He carries it out to the main room, cat following quite literally on his heels, and bends down to drop it lightly onto the floor. She may not want it now, but he'd rather she get any surprising energy out during the day instead of at night, so he might as well give it to her now.

He steps aside to let her get at it, and watches as she reaches forward to sniff delicately at the surface. Apparently approving of what she finds, she ducks her head to rub it against the wool, only to send it rolling away from her, leaving a small length of yarn in its trail as the end falls loose. Suddenly, her entire body seems concentrated on it. Her ears swivel forward, her eyes go round, the fur along the ridge of her spine stands up, and she slowly eases to her feet, chest pressed low to the ground even as her tail lifts, waving jerkily, and her hind end moves in tiny incremental adjustments. The she pounces, and Illya's plan unravels along with the yarn.

Her jump is silent, but the landing is loud, and she and the yarn both skid on the bare wood floor until coming up against the side of the couch with a resounding thud, and then she's scrambling up again and galloping after the ball, which had either bounced off the couch with impressive force and shot across the room or else been struck by a flailing paw.

Either way, for a small animal she makes an incredible amount of noise, and Solo wakes up just in time to see his majestic pet trip on the ball of yarn she's chasing across the room, somersault around it, and end up on her back with all four paws sunk into it.

For a second, everyone is silent. Illya looks from the cat, who's staring at them upside-down and somehow managing to convey both confusion and derision with an incredibly bland expression, to Solo, who's staring back with the exact same expression.

"Well?" Solo asks eventually, clearly talking to the cat. "What did you _think_ was going to happen?"

Illya doesn't think cats are biologically capable of rolling their eyes, but this one does an excellent impression of it and sets about industriously licking the yarn.

Solo sighs. "Big heart, small brain," he mutters, then looks over at Illya. "Speaking of which, it's quite bold of you to give that cat a ball of yarn."

"That's what you do with cats," Illya says, trying to sound sure of himself.

"Only if you don't mind rolling it all up again eight times a day," Solo huffs, and pushes himself upright with a wince, "after untangling it from every piece of furniture you own."

Illya shrugs. "I don't have that much furniture."

"And dealing with the fact that it's pretty much useless for anything else once it's covered in cat spit."

They both look over at the cat, who's given up licking the yarn and settled for trying to fit the ball, which is twice as big as her head, into her mouth.

"I have more," Illya says without thinking, then freezes, and curses himself vehemently.

"Oh?" There's such innocent _delight_ in the word, of _course_ there is, that's why Illya was going to _lie_ , because lying is _always_ the best option with Solo, and it's a damn good thing he _didn't_ join the KGB if it's _this_ easy to get under his skin—

"Why do you have yarn, Peril?"

To strangle himself with, of course. "For—yarn...things," Illya answers with as much asperity as possible, which isn't much at all, because berating himself in Russian and speaking in English is quite a lot of work to do at once, before noon, on a cold Wednesday that has already involved breaking and entering and kidnapping but which quite amateurishly did _not_ include robbery. Ну блядь.

"Peril."

Maybe if he ignores him, Solo will let it drop.

"Peril."

Well _that_ was clearly the stupidest thought he's ever had.

" _Peril._ "

"Fine," he snaps. "I am making presents for the Vanlians."

"It's January. It's _mid_ January."

Somehow, that's what gets him. What does it matter what time of year it is? Are Americans really so stringent that they only give gifts on dedicated occasions, with no room for generosity at any other time?

"And? It's cold, and they have four children to feed and keep warm, and I have nothing better to do since I cannot _work_ when the weather is like this—" he gestures angrily at the window, rimed in ice "—and so if I do not wish to lose my mind from _uselessness_ , I must do something, and so yes, I am making them presents, even in ' _mid J_ anuary.'"

"Easy, Peril," Solo says soothingly, "I wasn't criticizing. Just didn't know if you - or they - had a different holiday season I should be aware of."

"Oh. No. How is you arm?" he asks, belatedly remembering the wince.

"Still hurts," Solo says absently, pulling it out from under the blanket and moving it around gingerly, "but not worse than before. So I'll probably live. What are you making?"

He's clearly not about to let this go, even if his intentions aren't to malign Illya's pass-times, so Illya goes to his room and pulls the bundle out of the drawer. It falls apart when he drops it on Solo's lap, revealing several layers of scarves wrapped around hats and mittens. They're not colorful – he can't afford the sort of dye that won't run – but they're wool, and they're thick, and they're warm. He just needs to finish two more hats and another pair of mittens, and then he can take them across the hall and hope that they're worth something.

Solo blinks a few times, then runs his hands over them, feeling the texture.

"Is this knit or crochet?" he asks. "I never could tell the difference."

"Crochet," Illya says. "Makes thicker fabric. Doesn't stretch as much, but fewer holes, so better for winter."

"Looks like it." He picks a hat at random and holds it to the light. "It's well made, that's for sure. Where did you learn?"

"My father."

"Your _father?_ " Solo puts the hat down, and while he doesn't quite gape, it's a close thing.

Illya almost smiles. "Yes. He was the youngest of three sons, and his mother did not want the skill to disappear from her family, so she taught him. Embroidery, too, but he did not have time to teach it to me. I remember, when I was young, that he would come home from work and embroider handkerchiefs. Traditional Russian patterns, mostly, but sometimes other things."

"When did you lose him?" Solo asks quietly.

"I was fourteen, but he didn't die. The KGB took him away. We never knew why."

"Illya, I'm—"

"Don't apologize," Illya cuts in. "I don't need it. Not from you." 'Not from you, because you had nothing to do with it,' he means, but Solo seems to understand.

"D'you want to sit down?" is all he says. "It's your home, after all. You don't have to loom."

"I'm not looming," Illya protests, though he might not be entirely sure what that word means.

"You're looming like a henge. Sit down, if only to spare my neck the strain of looking up at you. Here, I'll make room." He swings his legs over the edge of the sofa and drags the blanket with him, gathering all the garments into a pile next to him. "Look – plenty of space, even for you."

Illya thinks about it, considers refusing, and decides it's not worth the effort. He drops down next to Solo with a bit of a sigh.

"I'm sorry I asked such a personal question," Solo says after a little bit. "It's not my business. But for what it's worth, I think he'd be proud of you. These are incredible, and I'm sure the Vanlians will love them. Which ones are for who?"

Illya reaches over and starts sorting them out. The creamy white is for Mariam, the larger tweed for Mr. Vanlian, the light grey for Davit, the smaller tweed for Siran, the slightly darker grey for Yeva, and the black for Mrs. Vanlian. Black wool is more expensive than dyed white wool, but it's worth the extra cost for something that won't bleed onto other fabrics, and he thinks the black looks elegant, almost. He'd used his smallest needle, and the yarn itself is fine; the resulting material is light and pliable, less bulky than the others, but it will still be warm even in the coldest winds.

"Incredible," Solo says again. "I can't even imagine how long these took. They're all perfect."

Illya shrugs. "Nothing is perfect, but nothing has to be."

"I suppose," Solo agrees, but he sounds dubious.

"What's a henge?" Illya asks.

"A what?"

"A henge. You said I was looming like a henge. Is it different than a hedge?"

For some reason, Solo finds that hilarious.

* * *

 _Hey so I know it's been a Long Damn Time but in my defense, depression tried super hard to murder me this entire spring semester and then when I finally succeeded in beating that back with a stick it was time for hip surgery and that went really well but then the executive dysfunction came for me and nailed me to the asphalt for a solid month, so there's that. I'm bit of a dumpster fire sometimes, but I'm still alive, and I'm still writing. I would love to promise that it'll never happen again, but I can't, so I won't. I'll just say that I'm grateful beyond words for all of you: you've stuck with me, you've supported me, you've encouraged me, and you've been patient with me. You're awesome, and I appreciate you so much._

 _Thanks for reading, and as always I welcome your feedback!_


End file.
